Illumination Entertainment’s The Secret Life of Pets topped the box office for the second weekend in row as it raced past the $200 million mark in just ten days, leaving Paul Feig’s female-centric Ghostbusters in its wake.

These are estimates of the sales on comic books by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores during June 2016.

These are estimates of the sales on graphic novels by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores during June 2016.

Target has Ghostbusters figures marked “Clearance” a week before the movie opens, and questions about the film’s marketing are raised.

Illumination Entertainment, which scored its biggest hit on this weekend a year ago with the $115 million debut of Minions , hit the jackpot again as The Secret Life of Pets bowed well above expectations with $103.2 million.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Fathom Events have booked a record number of cinemas for the one-night big-screen debut of Batman: The Killing Joke.

This week Bennett takes another look at angry fans.

This week’s home entertainment releases won’t overshadow the fireworks, but there are some items of interest including Stephen Chow’s wild Hong Kong fantasy/comedy The Mermaid , a visually stunning Brazilian animated feature, the latest season of the marvelously Machiavellian political drama House of Cards , reasonably-priced collections of The Real Ghostbusters , and a bevy of interesting anime offerings led by the only Studio Ghibli film that has never been released here before and the steampunk sci-fi epic The Empire of Corpses.

Pixar’s Finding Dory is a monster hit here in North America, where it has earned over $380 million in just 18 days and topped the box office for three weeks in a row.

The licensing industry gathered last week at Licensing Expo, and we round up here a raft of news on various products of interest to geek culture retailers.